I picked up for a few bucks this Univac security guard’s shield. Like many security badges it’s based on a New York State Great Seal. The proportions are changed and the figures of Liberty – woman holding a Phrygian cap on a stick (well, actually Liberty pole if you want to get technical) and Justice – woman with a sword and scale. There’s sunrise over Hudson inside the shield, but without the two boats. New York State’s motto Excelsior (which is Latin for “Up Your’s”).

The plastic laminated id is kind of cool, because it’s a miniature punchcard.

I guess the manufacturers of rent-a-cop badges are trying to make them subtly similar to NYPD logo, yet different enough not to get in trouble. NYPD badge is based on a similar, yet very distinct New York City Seal. Instead of Liberty and Justice it features American Indian with a bow. The other figure is enigmatic – for the longest time I thought that it was another American Indian holding a dead animal or a tomahawk. In fact, it turns out to be a Dutch sailor holding a “sounding line” – a nautical depth measuring rope. Another useless bit of trivia: Mark Twain chose his pen name from the expression “mark twain”, meaning only two fathoms reading on the sounding line.

The five stars on the chevron are for the five boroughs, the windmill is for the Dutch origins of New York City. The most unsettling part, is of course the Justice scales that rest on top of fasces, a bundle of sticks with an axe inside – the ancient symbol of authority. Along with the swastika, fasces has been marred as a symbol of Fascism, to which it gave its name.

Today I am going to explore the geek/NYPD cop connection. Let’s see:

Geeks have Dockers Mobile Pant. I am not sure why Dockers marketing people all of a sudden decided to use the singular form of the word, but I guess they wanted to play on the connotation of “panting”. “Mobile Pant(s)” are dorky and ugly khaki pants that somewhat lessen the bulges from cellphones and pdas. I used to own a pair, and can’t say that I liked it much.

NYPD has “Patrol Tactical Pants”. Most New York newspapers ran gushing stories about NYPD being oh so very fashionable with the introduction of these pants. You can still find regurgitated bits of those stories over at Gothamist blog.

Moving on. Geeks have their Darth Vader lightsaber replicas. You can purchase a a cool plasma one with crazy effects or in a true Jedi manner build one out of a Heiland photo flashgun, just like the real thing.

Traffic cops started to appear with red led lit batons – mmmm, dark side color :

You can purchase your own pair of “Patrol Tactical Pants” over at Galls. They also have duty jackets (these are perfect for fishing), buckle less belts (these just look neat) and gloves.

Police gloves are cheaper, look and fit better than most good quality civilian gloves. I always hated wearing gloves because taking them off when I need to pay for something, use a camera or a phone. Some police gloves are made so that you can pick up a small coin in them easily. Just look at these: “enhanced tactical sensation”, cut resistance and “Water-resistant kangaroo leather palms”? Can you say the perfect winter fishing glove?

They also have more esoteric equipment:

Cold Water Immersion Suit – for NYC sewer diving

Rhino® 14″ Wheel Immobilizer – for that dumbass whose car alarm wasn’t letting you sleep all night

Holding Cell and Holding Cell Bench (perps sold separately) : as a gift for everybody’s favorite night club owner

Thanks to a recommendation from I bought “Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs“. It’s really a tribute to an older book called “Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do”.

Gig consists of monologues of a wide cross section of working people. There’s a porn star, a software developer, prison guard, a prisoner (don’t know if that’s technically a job), an air force general, a high school teacher, a journalist and enough representatives of other professions to make a thousand “x y and z walk into a bar” jokes.

My favorite little story was about a single mom who had a gig as a psychological warfare specialist. She ended up getting my dream job when an Army recruiter asked her about her specialization preference. Since “spy” was not an option she took the next best thing.
Modern psywarriors, like this girl, sometimes hail from rather somewhat rural places, so they get a lot of multicultural sensitivity training. One point brought home to them is that it is very important to never refuse native food or drink that is offered to them by friendlies, even if it’s gross. In training they even have a mock dinner during which they have to down “weird” drinks and eat “weird” food. That training kind of came in handy to our protagonist, as she was offered “gruel goat” meal in Africa which you had to eat with your hands. She handled that well.

Turkish coffee turned out to be a stumbling block for her : ” … Turkish coffee. It’s got like a half an inch of grounds on the bottom. Well, I didn’t know if I was supposed to eat the grounds or not …”

What to do, what to do? Of course she decided to ask one of the guys. Guess what kind of advice he gave her. Riiight. I’d do the same thing.

Anyway, you can read her story here tanks to the guy at Amazon who sneaked full text search past the lawyers.

touched upon the most fascinating topic of what professions “Russian” immigrants never choose. Police officer appeared rather often on the list of professions suggested by her readers. Well, a guy who’s desk was right next to mine in a High School pre-calculus class finished the Police Academy here in New York. I am not sure if he actually became a cop though.

One story that he told me was kind of funny (I can’t judge it’s truthfulness though) . He smokes a lot. And once he was caught smoking right next to what he described as an “ammo dump”. The instructor who caught him came up with a creative punishment. My friend was forced to dig a proper human size grave and then bury the cigarette butt in it. Yeah, being an NYPD cadet is tough.

Another “Russian” classmate of mine became a US Marine. I wonder where he is right now. “Semper Fi” means the same thing even with a Russian accent. Yeah. By the way, the motto of NYPD is “Fidelis Ad Mortem”.